NOT THAT I DON'T: DAY 181

I sat down to write several times yesterday but nothing there. Today I sat down hoping for something better. When ‘something better’ crossed my mind a song came with it. Back in the mid 1980’s, country music was either more digestible than it is now or my taste hadn’t narrowed yet. Don Williams was a bass/baritone singer with a simple story in his lyrics. His nick name resonated everything that made him popular, the ‘Gentle Giant’. This morning I imagined his voice; “Lord I hope this day is good, I’m feeling empty and misunderstood. I should be thankful Lord, I know I should. But Lord I hope this day is good.” 

It’s not that I don’t like country music, I just don’t care for the next generation after Don Williams. When southern rock with its in-your-face attitude faded we got a heavy dose of shaved heads, goatees, syrupy grandpa songs and wannabe good-old-boys. I went back to James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt and Clapton. Yet Don Williams was a simple but truly civilized link to another time. “I don’t need fortune and I don’t need fame. Send down the thunder Lord, send down the rain. But when you’re plannin’ just how it will be, plan a good day for me.” 

I am hoping for a long string of good days. Even old heretics like myself, we concede to human nature. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a mysterious force out there that would make our days better simply because we concede with conviction. Magic is in the eye of the believer rather than the hand of the Wizard. If you solve the mystery you lose the magic. So I would try to be like Kris Kristofferson. He, like Don Williams, keeps it simple;  “And I stopped beside a Sunday school, and listened to the song that they were singing. Then I headed back for home, and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing.” 

A long string of good days would be awesome but that might be pushing my luck. I don’t want to seem greedy. Either way, by intervention or by random chance, a good day today would be cause for thanksgiving. Wishful thinking is comfortable, good for as long as it lasts but if I want a better day I’ll have to move my feet and be glad I still can. Human nature, that’s what comes in our tool box; it’s not a choice.